Message from the DVM Officers

Lara Ferry, Chair (chair.dvm@sicb.org); Alice Gibb, Program Officer (dpo.dvm@sicb.org); Vanessa Young, Secretary (secretary.dvm@sicb.org); Crystal Reynaga, Secretary-Elect (secretary-elect.dvm@sicb.org); Rick Blob, Past Chair (past-chair.dvm@sicb.org); Adrien A. Arias, SPDAC Representative (SPDAC@SICB.org)

Hello Morphologists!  We are excited to reach out as your DVM officers and report on events from the past several months and look ahead to events for SICB 2024 and the coming year.

To begin, we’ll re-introduce ourselves:  Lara Ferry (Chair), Rick Blob (Past Chair), Alice Gibb (Program Officer), Vanessa Young (Secretary), Crystal Reynaga (Secretary-Elect), and Adrien Arias (SPDAC Representative).  Please reach out to any of us with items you would like to have attention from DVM.  

Our current group of officers will be in place through the end of January 2024. New terms will begin in February 2024, with Crystal Reynaga starting as Secretary.  We are also excited to be welcoming our new Chair-Elect and Program Officer-Elect (see election results below)! 

Spring 2023 Election Results

Congratulations to Andie Ward and and Marguerite Butler on their elections to DVM Chair-Elect and DVM Program Officer-Elect, respectively!  Andie and Marguerite will begin their terms in February 2024. Thanks again to all of our candidates for running, and to the nominating committees for their work in recruiting and selecting candidates. 

Nominating Committee for Spring 2024 Elections

DVM is seeking three members to serve on the Nominating Committee for the Spring 2024 election cycle. The Nominating Committee functions to identify and recruit candidates to run for DVM officer positions. If you are interested in serving or would like to nominate a friend to serve in this capacity, please reach out to Lara Ferry (chair.dvm@sicb.org) before December 1, 2023. 

New DVM Initiatives

Through Division-specific dues paid by our members, DVM has been able to provide resources to help support regional SICB meetings and the Divisional Social at the annual meeting. An additional goal for these dues was to build funds that could be devoted to new initiatives that promote the field of Vertebrate Morphology and the ability of DVM members to work in this area. Last year, DVM rolled out three new initiatives to help support and promote the excellent work of our members.  

New DCB-DVM Mentor Mentee Program

The new DCB-DVM Mentor Mentee program survey is currently available! Whether you want mentorship for yourself, or want to pay it forward and get matched up with your own mentee, please sign up by November 15th (note: postdocs and senior graduate students have the option to serve as either mentor or mentee). Program participants will be matched up and notified by December 15, with more details. Fill out our short questionnaire if interested.

Support for OA Publication Fees for IOB

Applications are now being accepted on a rolling deadline for DVM support of Open Access charges for papers submitted to Integrative Organismal Biology (IOB). The current level of support would be $1000, covering ~75% of the current $1355 SICB members charge. The expectation is for these funds to support authors for whom access to OA support is limited, particularly students, postdocs, and PUI (primarily undergraduate institution) faculty. Applications may be made in advance of submission of a manuscript to IOB, but no reimbursements will be made until after acceptance and payment of fees by the author. Note that submissions to IOB must be made no later than 1 month after notification of the award. 

Congratulations to Chris Law, Hannah Rickman, and Abby Burtner (postdoc and undergrad co-first authors from the University of Texas at Austin) on receiving a 2023 IOB-OA Support Award! Their paper on the effects of size and locomotor ecology on squirrel morphology can be found here!

DVM will be continuing the IOB-OA support initiative in 2024. Additional information on the application process can be found on the DVM webpage.  Applications can be submitted via this google form. 

DVM Mentorship Award

This award is intended to recognize a DVM member for a commitment to mentoring that goes above and beyond the standard expectations of their job description, showing innovative approaches and outstanding accomplishments. Efforts in mentoring members of underrepresented groups are encouraged. 

If you have benefitted from the efforts of an outstanding mentor, please consider nominating them for this award. Additional information on award guidelines and the nomination process can be found on the DVM webpage. The next target review date is November 10, 2023. 

Social Media Position

DVM is looking for someone to help manage the DVM/DCB social media accounts and/or develop social media presence on new platform(s). If this sounds like a job for you, please reach out to one of the DVM officers!  

2024 SICB Meeting – Symposia and More!

Symposia are opportunities for DVM members to present forward-looking research to all of SICB and, through publishing in Integrative and Comparative Biology, to the broader scientific community. DVM will be sponsoring the following exciting symposia at the 2024 meeting in Seattle: 

• Computational and physical models in research and teaching to explore form-function relationships
• Convergent evolution across levels of biological organization, organisms, and time
• What do trade-offs mean to reproducing females? An integrative look at whole-organism trade-offs
• Moving in an uncertain world: Adaptive locomotion from organisms to machine intelligence
• Modeling organismal responses to changing environments
• Rise of the Anthropocene: Understanding how urban ecosystems drive evolutionary change

Additional exciting details for the upcoming Seattle Meeting:

• DVM and DCB have co-organized more than 300 abstracts into 41 sessions. Of these, 117 abstracts were submitted with DVM as the primary SICB division.
• There will be a best student talk presentation competition for 8 students who were selected to compete based on their extended abstracts (Davis Award).
• DVM is associated with 78 posters to be presented on January 3, 4, and 5, including 21 students competing for the best student poster presentation (Liem Award).

Regional SICB Meetings – This Could Be You!

Regional meetings are a great way to get your SICB fix between annual meetings! These are usually 1-2 day events with a single session of shorter presentations, but many formats are possible. They’re especially great opportunities for student presentations and to try out ideas ahead of the National meeting. Several regions have run these for many years with great success, and DVM is happy to offer sponsorship for regional meetings (usually up to $500). Please reach out to Lara Ferry if you’re thinking about organizing a meeting in your region.    

Check out these recent regional meetings!

Southeast Regional Meeting

The Southeast Regional SICB DCB/DVM Meeting at Virginia Tech was held as a free, all-day event on Saturday, November 4, 2023. The meeting was designed to build local community around integrative and comparative biology in a low-key, fun environment. For more information, please visit the SE Regional SICB DCB/DVM Meeting site (thanks to Josh Taylor).

Southwest Regional Meeting

The Southwest Regional Meeting of Organismal Biologists (SWOB) was held on November 4, hosted at the Claremont Colleges (Claremont, CA)! This was an exciting day of science, including keynote speaker Dr. Wendy Saltzman (University of California, Riverside), featured talks, and a poster session. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows were able to register for free, with a nominal fee ($50) for faculty. Food was provided (breakfast, coffee, lunch, and hors d’oeuvres with drinks at the poster session), and there were be awards for the best talk (graduate, undergraduate) and poster (graduate, undergraduate). Covid-19 safety protocols remained in place. Learn more at https://swob2023.wixsite.com/swob2023.

DVM Member Spotlights

2023 GIAR and FGST Award Recipients

Congratulations to DVM Members Jackie Rich, Leah Rubin, and Isaac Rush on their receipt of 2023 SICB GIAR and FGST Awards!

Jackie’s research focuses on exploring the effects of the female reproductive tract environment on common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) sperm properties.  She received a FGST Award to support her project on the development of a novel tool to improve artificial insemination success. 

Leah received a FGST Award to support her work on sharks in Fiji (project title: A Morphological Approach to Studying Shark Ecology in Fiji’s Coral Reefs).

Isaac was awarded a GIAR to support his research on plumage coloration (project title: Is Plumage Coloration Changing in Response to Rising Temperatures: A Modern Test of Gloger’s Rule).

Call for Member Spotlight Information

We are interested in streamlining the spring and fall newsletters, while also using this communication as a way to highlight our division members, especially early-career members.  If you have photos or other features that you would like to submit for consideration in future newsletters, please reach out to Vanessa Young (secretary.dvm@sicb.org).